Warrior

by Karen Lynch

  I had no answer for him because he was right. I was feeling possessive. I’d just gotten Sara back after the worst three weeks of my life, and I didn’t want to share her with anyone, least of all another male.

  But more than that, I didn’t want to upset her or to make the transition to her life here more stressful than it already was. I’d taken her from what she knew and thrust her into a completely different lifestyle. She hadn’t said it, but I could see in her face and her subdued behavior since we left Maine that she was feeling overwhelmed.

  Tristan leaned back with a heavy sigh, and I knew I was not going to like what he said next. I was right.

  “I think it would be best for Sara and you if you give her some space for a few weeks, maybe a month. Let her have time to settle in here and adjust, and to get to know people without any…complications.”

  My body stiffened. “You want me to leave her for a month? Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “I do,” he said apologetically. “And I understand why you’re angry. I remember how hard it was to be away from Josephine before we completed our bond.”

  “And yet you ask this of me.”

  He rubbed his jaw unhappily. “I don’t want to, and the decision is up to you. But can you honestly tell me you’ll be able to act normally when other males go near her? Will you be able to keep your feelings hidden until she is ready to learn the truth?”

  The anger drained out of me. “I don’t know.”

  “Believe me, Nikolas, if I thought there was a better way to do this, I’d suggest it. You’re one of my closest friends, and I hate to cause you pain. But Sara is my granddaughter, and her well-being must come first.”

  I ignored the weight on my chest and the outrage pouring from my Mori. “You’re right. Her happiness is all that matters.”

  “A month is all I ask.”

  I took a deep breath. “I want to be kept updated on how she’s doing. And when I return in a month, I will take over her training.”

  He didn’t try to hide his surprise. “You’ve never wanted anything to do with training.”

  “This is different.”

  “I suppose it is.” He smiled. “Well, if anything, it’ll be interesting to watch.”

  “Who will oversee her training while I’m gone?” I was hoping he’d say Claire, though I knew she handled more administrative tasks these days, helping Tristan run Westhorne.

  Tristan had that look again, the one that said I wasn’t going to be happy with his answer.

  “I think the best trainer to start her with is Callum.”

  “No.”

  He held up a hand. “Listen to me before you get worked up. Callum is the best trainer we have at Westhorne, and all the trainees like him. You can’t object to someone you barely know.”

  Remembering the handsome Scotsman smiling at Sara, I crossed my arms. “I can.”

  A smile tugged at his lips, and I scowled. How was any of this amusing?

  “Nikolas, I think there is something you should know about Callum that will make you less opposed to him.”

  “Is he mated?” Because I couldn’t think of anything else that would make me agree to him as Sara’s trainer.

  “No. I believe he was in a relationship that ended right before he moved here last year.”

  “Then he is single.”

  “He is also gay.”

  My eyebrows shot up.

  “Callum’s a good man, Nikolas, and a fine trainer. In this situation, I think he is the perfect one to pair with Sara until you get back.”

  I dragged my hand through my hair, knowing I had no arguments left. “Okay.”

  “Good.” Tristan looked relieved to have it settled. “When will you leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Erik had located one of Eli’s places in Portland, where they found some Vegas addresses. I’d planned to ask Geoffrey to check them out, but hunting in Vegas had never sounded more appealing. I had a feeling I’d need to work off a lot of aggression in the next four weeks.

  * * *

  “Goddamnit, Nikolas, do you know what time it is?”

  I almost smiled at the grumbling coming out of my phone. Chris was an easygoing guy – unless you woke him up in the predawn after a night of drinking with Seamus and Niall.

  My own mood wasn’t much better after a sleepless night with an agitated Mori. Last night, when I had agreed to go away for a month, I’d planned to tell Sara over breakfast that I was leaving. But if she saw me like this, she’d know something was wrong. And I might not be able to make myself leave.

  “Change of plans. Meet me in half an hour.”

  More groaning and swearing came out of the phone.

  “You can follow me later if you need a few hours.”

  He muttered something about bonds and impatient males before he hung up.

  Thirty minutes later, I left my apartment and made my way to the third floor of the north wing. The building was quiet, and I made no sound as I walked down the hallway and stopped at the last door on the left. I could feel Sara inside, and I pictured her sleeping in her bed, dark hair spilling over her pillow. In a few hours, she would awaken to start her first day at Westhorne, and I was sorry I would miss it.

  My phone vibrated, and I knew it was Chris, letting me know he was ready to go.

  I laid my hand against the door. Sleep well, moy malen'kiy voin.

  Chris met me in the garage where the motorcycles were stored. Our bikes were being shipped from Maine, but we kept backups here. We stored our gear and weapons, and within minutes, we were driving through the gates. I didn’t look back because it was hard enough leaving her.

  Solmi, my Mori wailed angrily as we left Westhorne and our mate behind us.

  We rode for three hours before we stopped for breakfast at a roadside diner.

  After I ate, I went outside and called Dax about an idea I’d had during the ride here. I hoped it would make Sara happy and maybe ease her anger at me for leaving the way I had.

  Dax laughed. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you in a few hours.”

  It was late afternoon when Chris and I pulled into the driveway of one of our two Vegas safe houses. Geoffrey, who oversaw all of our operations here, came up from the basement to greet us when we entered the house and dropped our bags in the foyer.

  “Nikolas, Chris, it’s been a while,” the black warrior said as we walked into the living room. “What brings you to Nevada?”

  Chris sat on the couch and stretched out his legs under the coffee table. “We heard you guys are having all the fun out here.”

  Geoffrey went into the kitchen and returned with three cold beers. Handing one to each of us, he sat on the other end of the couch.

  “Well, there’s lots of fun to go around; I promise you that. Feels like half the vampires on the west coast suddenly decided to vacation in Sin City.”

  I stood by the window. “How long has it been like that?”

  “About a month.” He rubbed his bald head. “I know they’ve got to be nesting here, but I’ll be damned if I can find them. There are a ton of places to hide in Vegas.”

  “Then you’re in luck because we might know a few places to start looking.” I took a long swig from my beer, my black mood lightening a fraction. I couldn’t think of a better way to ease some of the tension coiled inside me than to kill vampires.

  Geoffrey’s eyes gleamed. “Half my guys are out on a recon job. You want to wait until they get back?”

  I almost said no, but common sense prevailed. Going off half-cocked in my current frame of mind would be foolhardy and dangerous, and I had no intention of dying anytime soon.

  “Yes,” I said as my phone vibrated.

  It was a text from Dax. Minneapolis. Here’s the number. A phone number appeared on my screen.

  Thanks, I wrote back.

  Anytime.

  I set my beer down on the coffee table a
nd dialed the number Dax had sent. A female’s voice answered, and I immediately got to the reason for my call.

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “You want us to send them to Westhorne?

  “Yes.”

  “But they’re… This is a high security facility, and we’re much better equipped to house such beasts.”

  It sounded like she was typing on a computer keyboard. “We had to lock them up in a separate part of the building because they make the other creatures nervous.”

  “Then you should be happy when I take them off your hands.”

  She refused to back down easily. “Does Lord Tristan approve of this request?”

  I couldn’t fault the warrior for doing her job. “Feel free to call Tristan, but I expect those beasts to be on a transport for Idaho by the end of the week.”

  I hung up and smiled. I hadn’t let Tristan know what I was doing, and I suspected I’d be hearing from him within the hour. But if I couldn’t be with Sara, I would do my damnedest to make sure she was happy. Something told me those two hellhounds would do that.

  Chris gave me a wide-eyed look. “Did you just order them to send those two monsters to Westhorne?”

  I shrugged and sat in the chair across from him. “They belong to Sara, and she’d be upset if they were locked away in a place like that.”

  He let out a choked laugh. “They’re hellhounds, Nikolas. Tristan will have to lock them in the menagerie. He might throw you in with them when he gets his hands on you.”

  “They’re better off in the menagerie than in Minneapolis. They’ll be close to Sara, and she’ll make sure they’re well cared for.”

  He smiled wryly. “Yeah. Until they get loose and eat someone.”

  “She’ll have them eating out of her hand in a day.”

  He coughed into his beer. “You willing to make a wager on that?”

  It was my turn to laugh because I knew Sara a lot better than he did. “Name it.”

  “Hmmm.” He thought for a moment. “My new knife set for your favorite sword.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that, my friend? I know you love those knives.”

  “And I plan to keep them.”

  Geoffrey had been silent since my phone call. He looked from me to Chris. “What am I missing here?”

  Smirking at Chris, I picked up my beer. “I just acquired a new set of throwing knives.”

  Chapter 15

  “This is the last one.” I walked up to the large bonfire and tossed a body on top of the pile there. The stench of burning flesh assailed me, despite the wind blowing across the desert, and I held my breath until I put a safe distance between the fire and me.

  “Thank Jesus,” groaned Noah, one of Geoffrey’s warriors. “I don’t think I’ve ever lugged around that many dead suckers.”

  Abigail, the only female warrior on the team, stared at the fire. “Twenty-six vampires. I’ve never heard of a nest that big.” She looked across the fire at me. “Have you?”

  “Yes, but it’s rare. Usually they are new vampires. You don’t often see that many older vampires living in the same nest.”

  Mature vampires were territorial over their nests and didn’t play well with others their age. Younger vampires were weaker and more easily led, so it was common for an older vampire to surround themselves with younger ones.

  It was the second nest we’d cleaned out this week. The first one was much smaller – five vampires holed up in an apartment in Spring Valley – but one of the vampires we’d interrogated had led us to the larger nest. All in all, it had been a productive week.

  My phone vibrated, and I knew it was Tristan before I saw his name. He called me every other day with updates on Sara, which he received from Claire. His trip to India had been extended by a few days, and he’d flown back last night, eager to finally meet his granddaughter.

  I felt a pang of envy that he was with her while I was seven hundred miles away in another state. I’d kept busy in the week and a half since I’d left Westhorne, but no matter what I did, it couldn’t assuage the lingering ache in my chest. It didn’t help that my Mori constantly barraged me with angry longing and images of our mate from the last time we saw her. The only time the demon eased up was when I was killing vampires.

  I walked away from the fire as I put the phone to my ear. “You’re back.”

  “Yes, and I see you’ve been busy. I’m looking at a report that just came in and I’m sure the numbers must be wrong. It says you took out a nest of twenty-six vampires last night.”

  “That’s right.” I stopped walking and turned to look at the group of warriors near the fire a hundred feet away. “We’re just finishing the cleanup now, in fact.”

  Tristan let out a low whistle. “I take it you took lots of backup this time.”

  “You can let the Council know I went in with two heavily armed units. It was completely by the book.”

  He laughed. “You’ve never done anything by the book in your life.”

  My lips twitched. “Okay. It was close.”

  “I’ll be sure to make a note of that.”

  There was silence for a moment until I asked, “Have you seen her?”

  “Yes.” A note of wonder filled his voice. “I just watched her… I’m not even sure how to describe it.”

  Having spent so much time with Sara in Maine, I could only imagine what stunt she’d pulled to make one of the most composed warriors I’d ever known speechless.

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense. What has she gotten into this time?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “Callum and I were walking to the arena when I saw Sara come out of the woods with Seamus and Niall. She likes to walk alone in the woods, and they keep an eye on her.”

  “She loves being outdoors,” I said almost to myself. It was one of the reasons I’d known she would like our valley. The Irishmen were good warriors, and I was glad to have them watching over her. Knowing how much Sara valued her independence, she probably wasn’t as happy about them.

  “So, what happened?”

  “What happened was that those two beasts got loose.”

  My stomach lurched. “Is Sara okay?”

  Tristan let out a hearty laugh. “If by okay, you mean did she step in front of two charging hellhounds and command them to stop, then, yes, she’s perfectly fine. And then she ordered me and my warriors to lower our weapons because we were upsetting her dogs.”

  I pictured Sara standing in front of the hellhounds, defending them from the warriors, just as she had put herself between me and her troll friend. She was fiercely protective of those she cared about.

  “What did you do?”

  “What could we do? We lowered our swords.” He laughed again. “I think we were all in shock. One minute, we were prepared to fight for her life, and in the next, she had those beasts fawning over her with their tails wagging. Then she made Seamus take her to the menagerie so she could make sure her hellhounds were being treated well.”

  I smiled at the images his story created. Sara was already making her mark at Westhorne. I had a feeling life at the stronghold would never be the same.

  Tristan exhaled loudly. “You told me about the things she did in Maine, but seeing it…”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t wait to get to know her. Don’t worry; I won’t push her. I want her to be happy here.”

  I smiled. “Just let her know that her family is ready to meet her when she is. She might surprise you.”

  Sara harbored a lot of anger toward Madeline, but she hadn’t been able to hide her interest when I told her she had a Mohiri grandfather. Once she saw Tristan was a nothing like his daughter, she’d open up to him.

  “I’ll do that.” His chair squeaked as he settled back in it. “Did you find anything in that nest last night?”

  I watched the warriors who had started digging a pit in which to bury the burnt vampire bodies. “Not yet. We tended to the humans and dropped them at the hospita
l. We’re headed back to the building when we’re done here. If there is anything in that place that’ll lead us to Eli’s Master, I’ll find it.”

  “The Council is making the hunt for this vampire a priority. We’re organizing a special task force that will focus solely on searching for him.”

  “Who did you get to lead the team?” Normally, I would have been one of the first people approached for a job like this, having hunted three Masters and killed two of them. Tristan wouldn’t have asked me to lead this one because he knew I could not leave Sara for that long.

  “Mateo Ruiz is going to head it up. I believe you and he have worked together a few times.”

  Mateo and I met on a Master hunt in Bolivia many years ago, and I’d never known a more ruthless hunter. When he was five, his entire village, including his human mother, was wiped out by a Master. The only reason Mateo had survived the attack was because his mother had sent him to a Catholic mission ten miles away for help banishing his “demons.” The Mohiri found Mateo when they came to investigate the attack.

  Since then, Mateo had devoted his live to one cause: hunting Masters. He had four Master kills to his name, a feat surpassed only by Tristan, who had been around a few hundred years longer.

  “Yes. If anyone can find this vampire, it’s Mateo.”

  “I agree.” He paused for a moment. “I told the Council about Sara. They needed to be made aware of her unique situation.”

  “And?” I asked tightly.

  “We decided the task force should have the information. Maybe it will help them figure out why the Master wants Sara.”

  The less people who knew about Sara, the better. But Mateo was discreet and I trusted him. I was still worried, however, with any other plans the Council might have.

  “I can guess why you’re so quiet,” Tristan said. “The Council has some concerns about Sara’s power, but I made it clear that my granddaughter is off-limits. They won’t press me on this.”